THE EAST WIND

                    "Should a wise man answer with empty knowledge,
                      and fill himself with the east wind?
                      Should he run with unprofitable talk, or by speeches
                      with which he can do no good?"
                                                                     Book of Job - 15:2&3



I had sincerely hoped that we would be able to put this e mail scandal down by now (I refuse to be a copycat and call it "emailgate"? Can't we be more original than that?) and that the police investigation would be well on its way. Frankly, I don't see how this could take a long time. Experts are available and all of the major players have said that they will co-operate, so there is absolutely no reason why a matter as important as this one is cannot be dealt with swiftly ... and by 'swiftly' I mean first world 'swiftly' ... a week or two at the most. If the investigation is not done quickly then the acting Commissioner of Police will have to say what is the hold up and why it is taking so long. Experts do exist!!

But in the meantime, the whole thing gets murkier. I had said in an earlier post that I didn't believe that Dr. Rowley had sent the alleged e mails to teh President. I had said this because I couldn't believe that the then President had done nothing except forward it to the Integrity Commission, who also did nothing! And yet, at the end of last week former President Richards said 'oh yes! I got that package from Dr. Rowley and held onto it for about five or six days and then sent it on to the Integrity Commission before wiping my hands of the whole thing'.

Okay. The former President didn't exactly say that ... but that is the effect of what he said. So I now have to ask the ex-President why did he not call in the police? You see, included in the contents of the alleged e mails is a conspiracy to kill or seriously injure a citizen of Trinidad & Tobago. What, in the name of heaven, did the former President think taht the Integrity Commission was going to do about that? I can't believe that he was waiting to see if it would actually happen and then join in by saying 'gotcha!' What?

The only valid excuse that I can think of is that His Excellency having perused the documents came to the conclusion that they were so patently false that it was absolutely clear that there was absolutely no threat to the journalist whatsoever. There is no other valid excuse. The same thing goes for the Integrity Commission. I can't believe ...refuse to believe ... that the life of a human being could be so cavalierly treated by someone in that august Commission as being quoted as saying words to the effect that the Commission has a lot of work to do and that is why it hasn't got around to this matter as yet! Really? You have more important work to do than saving someone's life!?

I am not even going to bother commenting on Dr.Rowley's actions. Clearly, at best, if he really believed those alleged e mails to be true, he was playing politics with somebody's life! And that, in my view, is unforgivable. He should have gone to the police right away!